


unarmed.

by pontifexcitrina



Series: acoc short stories [2]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, as treat, cara should get to murder someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26022364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pontifexcitrina/pseuds/pontifexcitrina
Summary: cara and amethar on a castle wall.
Series: acoc short stories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888750
Kudos: 7





	unarmed.

there is a choice and there is a castle wall and a dagger in her hands. 

  
there is the castle walls, her husband who was never supposed to be, and there are lazuli’s eyes staring back at her and getting fainter by the day. 

  
there is amethar, amethar who has lazuli’s eyes and rococoa’s mouth and citrina’s kindness and sapphria’s cunning, but the ghosts in his face will only ever be echoes of the real thing. 

  
there is the memory of her mother putting books on her head and forcing her to walk in heels while reciting the names of the last twelve rulers of ceresia (in order and if they were senate or imperator) and scarecrows in place of her daughters. 

  
over the bridge, unbeknownst to her, her daughter is dying. 

  
a daughter who never wanted the throne, who wanted to be like her father so much she was even rejecting his legacy of the unfallen. 

  
but she is not in a lingerie shop in dulcington. 

  
she stands on the castle wall, her husband beside her, looking at tents. 

  
she thinks she could’ve loved amethar in the quiet moments, if this wasn’t a war, if he wasn’t the unfallen, and if she hadn’t loved and lost lazuli.  
which is a long way to say not at all. 

  
“reminds me of before.” amethar says, and cara knows he means before rococoa was dead, before he found out he would indeed be the king, the emperor, the unfallen. when he was allowed to gallivant, a spoiled prince. 

  
sugary sweet and over indulgent. 

  
cara has to be careful not to tip her hand and slit his throat right then.   
she hates the past. 

  
most of all she hates amethar’s version of the past. rose tinted. coddled. 

  
weak. 

  
in a world where everything was taken from her she wonders why amethar was given everything. 

  
fifth in line and never destined for the throne and here he stands, instead of lazuli. 

  
she knows that it’s cal’s fault. 

  
and she will kill him once he’s done. 

  
he has always thought it would come down to the two of them. 

  
but it never would. 

  
it would be her and her alone while cal is dead in the ground, king of the gummy worms that eat at his corpse. 

  
“i don’t think about before. there’s too much to do now.” cara says and amethar laughs and cara hates how her heart squeezes because that is _lazuli’s_ laugh. that is ruby’s laugh, that is jet’s laugh, and it shouldn’t belong to him. 

  
he turns away from her again and she places her hand on his shoulder. 

  
“if only lazuli could see us now.” amethar says and that makes her pause. 

  
“if only she could.” 

  
the dagger slips in between his ribs and she feels the grind of bone as she pushes it to the hilt. 

  
she feels no remorse as she pushes him over the wall. 

  
she watches him, alight, aloft, amazed. 

  
she watches as cal runs to him, yelling for amethar to get up. 

  
she watches as cal grasps his arm, hauls him out of the pit. 

  
she doesn’t hear what he says, only knows that cal presses a watersteel dagger into his chest as sweet as can be.

  
amethar falls. 


End file.
